About Us – The Chicago Defenderhttp://chicagodefender.com
Power by Real Times MediaSat, 10 Dec 2016 01:24:23 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/http://1.gravatar.com/blavatar/b673e519ae8c96750f5225af010e4e60?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.pngAbout Us – The Chicago Defenderhttp://chicagodefender.com
A new Evilhttp://chicagodefender.com/2016/02/04/a-new-evil/
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Where is this world headed when people like Cruz, Trump and and Palin all confirmed racist are running for office and preaching hate of every kind its frighting.
What is going to happen to our world when we are a country of minorities and the white race is the minority?
Do the likes of Cruz, Trump and Palin if elected round them up and take them to the gas chambers?
Build bigger jails and have them all locked up as free labor?
Or just put them in the desert somewhere and kill them all and let the sun bake their bones?
Trumps attitude of the disabled is shameful would he order all of them sterilized or worse yet shot and killed.
Or would he have every illegal immigrant rounded up and shot to ensure they don’t come back.
We are headed backwards with these types as possible leaders of the free world.
And what type of free world would this be with idiots set on creating a white ruled America.
We are at a very strange time in America with hate groups developing as never before seen.
Is this simply the beginning of a civil war based on race, are the police beatings of black men just the tip and the killing of Moslem people the tip of the war on minorities and non Christian religions.
I hear friends say they are supporting the republican party and I wonder why when all they have ever done is divide the nation and favor the rich and powerful.
How can educated people for a minute think this is the way a multicultural country will survive without civil conflict.
Minorities are on the rise, are they going to sit back and watch as their people are killed by these political types?
This is all I see from them, setting the clock back where civil rights are a thing of the past, and white rule will be the judge on weather you live or die sounds like a horror movie.
These people are talking like Hitler and the fear mongers are using a few terrorist to light a fire of fear in the minds of the ignorant.
Are we headed back to lynch mobs when whole towns would turn out to hang black people and this time it will be all minorities.
Frighting thoughts but the reality of this is the talk of the republican idiots, and their leaders Trump, Cruz and Palin..
Remember Hitler was a little man that most didn’t take seriously and look what happened.
We need to learn to get to know each other, so these lies about different groups of people can be put to rest through education and association with the people we don’t understand.
And lastly protest the medias racist profiling of minorities and non Christian people. Write, picket and most of all make it known at the voting box these type will not be elected. We are an America for the people all people all races and all religions.When these rights are taken from us what will happen next?

]]>http://chicagodefender.com/2016/02/04/a-new-evil/feed/0whatisee4uPicture 8The rise of Racism in Americahttp://chicagodefender.com/2016/01/20/the-rise-of-racism-in-america/
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We are watching the racist in America proudly flaunt their hate in your face all delivered by the new Hitler.
If you don’t think this man is dangerous for all of us white, black and all other minorities then think again.
He will unleash fear on both sides of the fence and people will want to protect themselves before history repeats itself. His tactics of strong arming protesters at his rallies are the same as used by Hitlers Nationalistic party to create fear and control of the people as a party of strength and direction. The mirror doesn’t lie when we look at this madman and see his alter ego at work.
Killings will be rampant unjustified based simply out of fear and the need to protect ones families. The open carrying of weapons in some states send out a message to others in states across America that there is a need to bear arms.
This is simply the beginning of this madness and the panic created by a White press bent on supporting the Trumps of the world is only aiding in driving rational thought out the window.
Its effect is reaching over here to Europe as hate mongers are finding they have the backing of the people as the waves of foreign hate and fear rises.
The idea of white countries becoming threatened with the influx of Moslem men and their values has set the white world on a course of impulsive fear.
The media is feeding this fear with lies and the Trumps of the world are using this as their moment to feed the fires perfectly timed with the election for president not far off.
We need to move quickly to put these fires out with rational thinking and not the thinking of the racist.
Write letters to the press letting them know you have had enough of their fear baiting.
And most of all vote vote vote we don’t need these types running America or sitting in congress controlling our lives and our children’s future as they create laws to turn back time.]]>http://chicagodefender.com/2016/01/20/the-rise-of-racism-in-america/feed/0whatisee4uPicture 8A New Years Thoughthttp://chicagodefender.com/2016/01/01/a-new-years-thought/
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Happy New Year.

Remember this when you’re being too hard on yourself. If this was a level playing field we would see our dreams come true like theirs, we would see our children live life like theirs, we would have a host of doors to open and we would understand the freedom that they know. And in doing so we would see unlimited opportunities like them. So when we struggle, when we fail don’t be too hard on yourself, you have help in your failures. You have many who wish you to fail. But when we succeed and climb them stairs and unlock that door, you can be proud because them stairs were rigged and filled with holes so you would fail. I keep this thought in my head while I struggle in a world filled with potholes and rigged stairs. When you get a flat fix it and move on, when you find a step that’s broken climb over it. Don’t get caught up in the road they have paved for you, but see it as a challenge to be had and nothing more. We will have many mountains to climb so long as racism is the reality we must face each day.

Officer Will Not Face Charges in Shooting of 12 year old Cleveland Boy.

Once again justice is served for the killer.
Once again a murder of a black child goes unpunished.
And once again the system fails the ones it’s there to protect.
A child playing in the park with a toy gun is gunned down.
A child, let me say that again, a child is playing in the park and is gunned down by the very one he is supposed to run to for protection.
And again the debate will go on about who was in the wrong.
In my day a toy gun was just that and any adult would know a child is carrying a toy gun.
Things have changed since I was a child with children walking the streets killing one another.
Fear is in the air but who’s the professional here?
Why is it that no one thought to question him first before riding up and shooting him without one question.Why not shoot him in the leg if you have to shoot him, and why is it that the same situation with a white person we would watch them walk away in handcuffs even after killing many.
We understand the system is set up for the police and black lives don’t matter in their eyes.
But God Damn isn’t anyone tired of the lying and covering up to protect killers.
And isn’t it time to change this system that protects and is also partners in murder?
When the police know they will walk free in 98% of their murders whats to keep the killing types filled with hate from killing at free will, and crying I was afraid for my life.
Are you sick of these cases and sick of the outcome?
I know I am. I’m tired of these stories since I was a child the same stories that haunted us every day year after year after year.
Racist and racism is still alive in America and its time we took control and vote these types out of our lives.
I’m sick of it you should be too.

And most of all I wish to say to Tamir we failed you in not arming you with the knowledge you are a walking target simply because of the color of your skin.No matter how much you are loved at home outside your door there are people who wish you harm. We failed to warn you that certain toys are not ever to be one of your play things not even in the park or your back yard. And most of all we failed to create a world that is yours to be the man you wanted to be without fear.

There is much to do about everything. Without question or doubt America is definitely at a crossroads, but then again so is the entire world. It’s as if it’s all caught up with us. The inhumane practices that the world community participates in and then tries to pretend does not exist; from child abuse to child pornography, child molestation, the oppression of women, rape, female circumcision; human trafficking of men, women and children, slavery—the overt prejudice. Racial profiling and systemic institutionalized racism in America; classism throughout Asian cultures, tribalism throughout Africa, racial cleansing in other parts of the world, total disrespect and disregard for all forms of life, the earth, its atmosphere and beyond. Yes, the world is now converging upon itself. Centuries of European and Caucasian dominion over the rest of the world’s people of color, colonizing, oppressing and robbing their lands, discriminating against and stripping their minds and spirit of their riches. Catholicism flooded the world with its belief, brainwashing people to seek salvation through it by confessing their sins to a priest who often abused or took advantage of them. Then under the guise of humanity they offered education only to enslave them even more.

Oppressed people believe that education is their key to freedom. The whole world bought into it— each group of people believing that they’d have the opportunity to sit at the table with the masters. It’s all a part of their indoctrination. The greatest hoax of course being that they have convinced people of color worldwide that they are the minority when in fact there’s nothing minor about us as we outnumber Caucasians. And, if truth be told, can wipe them out genetically without using any weapons. That is the real threat.

So here we are in a world where the colonized, who were afforded education, have flocked to the countries that colonized them looking for equal opportunity to exercise their new skills set all the while antagonizing the nationalists. Meanwhile, the five percenters, the puppeteers of the world sit back and watch the game play out as planned. Asian countries have emerged in second and third place behind the United States with Germany in forth place and France in fifth. The United Kingdom comes in sixth place, Brazil in seventh, Italy in eighth, Russia once holding the number two position now holds the ninth position and India places the tenth position as top economies.

The distribution of wealth in the world—the inequitable distribution of income is present at the global level where the nominal gross domestic product (GDP) of the top ten economies adds up to 65 percent of the world’s economy, and the top 15 economies add up to 75 percent. The remaining 172 countries constitute only 25 percent of the world’s economy. Clearly there is no Black country close to such growth or acquisition of wealth and yet Africa is one of the riches continents with more resources than any other in the world.

Go figure. So this is the monster that we face on all fronts. That is why everyone is struggling to become a five percenter. They present the pictures, flaunt their images and wealth in our faces, the luxury of it all, the benefits, the easy breezy dreamlike lifestyle, so that everyone will covet and desire to buy into it. This is the very carefully orchestrated strategy from the architects of world domination.

Their carefully laid out plans affects everything we do or think. If you think that it’s a coincidence that Black people all over the world are denied access and opportunity then you are mistaken and most likely to fall prey to what is being coined as the new world order — a race-less world where only money and wealth matter to differentiate.

Race will come to be the mindset — a state of mind rather than the color of one’s skin or cultural distinctions. That’s what has been taking place overtime. What was meant to be integration became assimilation and that is the game changer. When one can assimilate into another person’s culture means that they give up their culture of ethnicty, tribal and religious origin and adopt the cultural philosophy and lifestyle of the colonist and/or oppressor, eventually succombing to that which has taken their soul thus denying them their original self expression.

We all see it and witness it. The brothers and sisters who have lost all traces of their historical identity inside while maintaining their ethnic skin and physical features on the outside. The American born Asian who speaks perfect English is overweight and marries White; and of course there is the African who is of British influence, who looks down African Americans, seeks union with the European in the pursuit of affluence. Jews though they hate to admit it are facing this problem more often as fewer of each succeeding generation fail to attend the synagogues and marry outside their religion.

The architects of our destruction have discovered how to destroy from within. For years they sought to dominate the Black man physically and it did not work because of our spiritual connection to The Most High God. As our connection to God weakened so has our ability to empower ourselves. So here we stand in the midst of chaos.

Our children (not all) are unruly, they disrespect our elders, have no decorum, they are lost, have very little compassion or real people skills because they are a generation raised on technology that isolates them from one another and any real intimate interactions. They are confused because after graduation there are so few job opportunities. They have watched the educated generations before them, fall from grace and succumb to menial jobs, or they observe them stay on the job until they’re too old to enjoy retirement because their lifestyle costs. They live in a world riddled with life threatening diseases; a world of treachery, thieves stealing form the poor, and their peers committing mass murders, for 60 seconds of fame. They have observed the world let Africans die of starvation. Watched as little Black African girls were taken by rebels from their homes never to be found and the world stood by and did nothing. They watch as Black lives are shot down, man, woman and child, brutalized as if a piece of dead meat.

We witness our communities falling apart from self-disrespect, manifested as drugs and gang
violence, as schools are closed, businesses shut down, more liquor stores and store front churches open up as mega churches grow fat and deepens the pockets of the pulpit, all while preaching a new religion of self wealth first the European in the pursuit of affluence. Jews though they hate to admit it are facing this problem more often as fewer of each succeeding generation fail to attend the synagogues and marry outside their religion.

The architects of our destruction have discovered how to destroy from within. For years they sought to dominate the Black man physically and it did not work because of our spiritual connection to The Most High God. As our connection to God weakened so has our ability to empower ourselves. So here we stand in the midst of chaos.

Our children (not all) are unruly, they disrespect our elders, have no decorum, they are lost, have very little compassion or real people skills because they are a generation raised on technology that isolates them from one another and any real intimate interactions. They are confused because after graduation there are so few job opportunities. They have watched the educated generations before them, fall from grace and succumb to menial jobs, or they observe them stay on the job until they’re too old to enjoy retirement because their lifestyle costs. They live in a world riddled with life threatening diseases; a world of treachery, thieves stealing form the poor, and their peers committing mass murders, for 60 seconds of fame. They have observed the world let Africans die of starvation. Watched as little Black African girls were taken by rebels from their homes never to be found and the world stood by and did nothing. They watch as Black lives are shot down, man, woman and child, brutalized as if a piece of dead meat.

We witness our communities falling apart from self-disrespect, manifested as drugs and gang
violence, as schools are closed, businesses shut down, more liquor stores and store front churches open up as mega churches grow fat and deepens the pockets of the pulpit, all while preaching a new religion of self wealth first before service to one another.

Here in Chicago on our home front we know the reality of all this. We, after all, are the descendants of Robert Abbott Sengsatcke’s call to be self-determined. We hail from those, who heard his voice speak to us to leave the oppression of the South and come north to seek opportunity to be equals even if separate. Black people in Chicago know about hard work and its rewards and its benefits. We also know about the punishment if you are too smart, too successful; too outspoken about your right to be self expressed, self determined but mostly to be accepted as human. We have witnessed the murder of Benjamin Lewis the first Black alderman ever elected for the 24th Ward and Democratic Committee man who won in a landslide election and was shot three times in the back of his head the same night. Black Panther Fred Hampton was murdered in his sleep by Chicago police, Elijah Muhammad’s rebel Imam, Malcolm X, was gunned down in New York as he spoke truth, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated because he was uniting the poor; Black and white; we experienced our white colleagues laughing at Harold Washington’s death as we sobbed, and observed Michael Jordon forced to accept his place.

So it doesn’t surprise me when those who have risen to the top such as Barbara Byrd-Bennett like a tired old race horse running the race never reaping the windfall of their counterparts fall to the dark side forgetting all that we’ve been taught. She emerged as a raceless person in disguise as Black and gave a good-for-nothing nod to our community and cared even less about our children’s future. It’s time to stop looking outside ourselves. Now is the time to be the change.

We hope that you will join us at our town hall meetings where we will convene in our community to hear what’s on your hearts and minds. Stay tuned, we will announce where

John Lewis , President Obama and Amelia Platt Boyton-Robinson pictured holding hands. They paved the way for Barack Obama’s historic Inauguration, to be held just one day after the nation’s annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.

America has lost a warrior of the Civil Rights Movement. Ms. Amelia Boynton Robinson died Wednesday in Alabama of a massive stroke. She was 104 years old. The world will miss the presence of Amelia Boynton, Civil Rights warrior whose contribution to the struggle made a difference. Be very clear that she is amongst the last of a dying breed. She stands right up there with Julian Bond and all those who fought to give us the life we enjoy today.

Ms. Boynton Robinson had a pivotal role in the 1965Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights, which helped usher in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – a role which recently was depicted in the movie Selma portrayed by actress Lorraine Toussaint. Ms. Boynton Robinson went to see Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. right before Christmas and told him that he needed to come to Selma. He did and history was made on the Edmund Pettus Bridge where she nearly lost her life on “Bloody Sunday.” A year earlier, she became the first African-American woman from Alabama to run for Congress in 1964. She was awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr., Freedom Medal in 1990.

Amelia Platts was born in Savannah, Georgiaon August 18, 1911 to George and Anna Platts, both of whom were African-American. Church was central to Amelia and her nine siblings’ upbringing. As a young girl, she became involved in campaigning for women’s suffrage. Her family encouraged the children to read. Amelia attended two years at Georgia State College (now Savannah State University, an historically black college). She transferred to Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), earning a degree in home economics where she met the noted scholar George Washington Carver. (Platts later also studied at Tennessee State, Virginia State, and Temple University.) She was a a member of the Delta Sorority.

Dr. Amelia Boynton Robinson, Mother of the Voting Rights Movement pictured here on ‘Bloody Sunday’ as she was struck down by police. The other insert pictures her at 102 years old.

Platts-Boyton-Robinson was Platts then. She taught in Georgia before starting with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Selma as the home demonstration agent for Dallas County. She educated the county’s largely rural population about food production and processing, nutrition, healthcare, and other subjects related to agriculture and homemaking.[4]

She met her future husband Samuel W. Boynton in Selma, where he was working as a county extension agent during the Great Depression. They married in 1936 and had two sons, Bill Jr. and Bruce Carver Boynton named after George Washington Carver.

In 1934 Amelia Boynton registered to voteafter numerous failed attempts, because it was extremely difficult for African Americans to register in Alabama, due to discriminatory practices under the state’s disenfranchising constitution passed at the turn of the century. It had effectively excluded most blacks from politics for decades, an exclusion that continued into the 1960s. A few years later she wrote a play, Through the Years, which told the story of creation of Spiritual music, in order to help fund a community center in Selma, Alabama. In 1954 the Boyntons met Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where King was the pastor.

In 1963, Samuel Boynton died. It was a time of increased activism in the Civil Rights Movement. Amelia made her home and office in Selma a center for strategy sessions for Selma’s civil rights battles, including its voting rights campaign. In 1964 Boynton ran for the Congress from Alabama, hoping to encourage Black registration and voting. She was the first female African American to run for office in Alabama and the first woman of any race to run for the ticket of the Democratic Party in the state. She received 10% of the vote.

In 1964 and 1965 Boynton worked with Martin Luther King, James Bevel, and others of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to plan demonstrations for civil and voting rights. While Selma had a population that was 50 percent black, only 300 of the town’s African-American residents were registered as voters in 1965, after thousands had been arrested in protests. By March 1966, after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, 11,000 were registered to vote.

To protest continuing segregation and disenfranchisement of Blacks, in early 1965 Amelia Boynton helped organize a march to the state capital of Montgomery, initiated by Chicagoan James Bevel, which took place on March 7, 1965. Led by John Lewis, Hosea Williams and Bob Mants, and including Rosa Parks and others among the marchers, the event became known as Bloody Sunday when county and state police stopped the march and beat demonstrators after they left the Edmund Pettus Bridge and crossed into the county.Boynton was beaten unconscious; a photograph of her lying on Edmund Pettus Bridge went around the world. Another short march led by Martin Luther King took place two days later; they turned back. With federal protection and thousands of marchers joining them, a third march reached Montgomery on March 24, entering with 25,000 people.

The events of Bloody Sunday and the later march on Montgomery galvanized national public opinion and contributed to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; Boynton was a guest of honor at the ceremony when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law in August of that year.

This past January, Boynton Robinson attended the State of the Union address, wheeled in by fellow “Bloody Sunday” marcher Rep. John Lewis (D, Georgia). She was there at the invitation of Rep. Terri Sewell (D, Alabama), who later asked that Boynton be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Boynton became Robinson through a third marriageto Tuskegee classmate James Robinson. after a brief marriage in 1969, to a musician named Bob W. Billups who died unexpectedly in a boating accident in 1973. She moved with James to Tuskegee after the wedding. Mr.Robinson died in 1988.

In 1983, Robinson met the controversial political figure in the Democratic Party, Lyndon LaRouche. A year later she served as a founding board member of the LaRouche-affiliated Schiller Institute. Five years later LaRouche was later convicted of mail fraud involving $30 million in debt. In 1991, the Schiller Institute published a biography of Robinson, who even into her 90s was described as “LaRouche’s most high-profile Black spokeswoman.”

In 1992, proclamations of “Amelia Boynton Robinson Day” in Seattle and in the state of Washington were rescinded when her involvement in the Schiller Institute was realized.

Earlier this year at the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday Ms. Boynton Robinson said, “We were successful at what we achieved 50 years ago, but we missed the boat because we still don’t have our civil rights, we have to assure every American equality through integration.” She had also been slated to receive a Phoenix Award from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation on Sept. 19 in Washington, D.C.

On the afternoon day of her passing President Obama made the following statement about Boynton Robinson’s passing:

Amelia Boynton Robinson was a dedicatedand courageous leader in the fight for civil rights. For most of her 104 years, Amelia committed herself to a simple, American principle: that everybody deserves the right to vote. Fifty years ago, she marched in Selma, and the quiet heroism of those marchers helped pave the way for the landmark Voting Rights Act. But for the rest of her life, she kept marching – to make sure the law was upheld, and barriers to the polls torn down. And America is so fortunate she did. To honor the legacy of an American hero like Amelia Boynton requires only that we follow her example – that all of us fight to protect everyone’s right to vote. Earlier this year, in Selma, Michelle and I had the honor to walk with Amelia and other foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement. She was as strong, as hopeful, and as indomitable of spirit – as quintessentially American – as I’m sure she was that day 50 years ago. And we offer our thoughts, our prayers, and our enduring gratitude to everyone who loved her.

Said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D. N.C.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a statement:

Today we mourn the passing of a remarkable citizen, Mrs. Amelia Boynton Robinson, a civil rights activist and one of the leaders of the 1965 Bloody Sunday march of 1965. Often referred to as the matriarch of our country’s Civil Rights Movement, Mrs. Boynton Robinson worked tirelessly on the behalf of those who were discriminated against and disenfranchised, and she stood courageously in the fight to ensure voting rights for every citizen in this nation. Mrs. Boynton Robinson was committed to equality until her death and was a champion for African Americans when our voices were not yet heard. Fifty years ago, Mrs. Boynton Robinson walked bravely across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to ensure that all African Americans had equal opportunity and the right to vote. Her walk was not in vain, and we remain forever grateful for her contributions and dedicated service to civil rights in America.

Boynton’s family has released the following statement in regards to her death:

“After being hospitalized last month following a massive stroke, Dr. Amelia Boynton Robinson’s health continued to deteriorate. With deep sadness, we announce that she passed peaceably this morning with family and friends surrounding her at approximately 2:20 a.m. in Noland Hospital of Montgomery in Alabama. Funeral arrangements will be announced later. Thank you. The Family

“The Family wishes to thank all who have contributed to Dr. Boynton Robinson’s medical expenses. There is still a need for financial assistance. Please feel free to make your contributions directly at PNC Bank, 102 East Rosa Parks Avenue, Tuskegee, Alabama 36083, under the ‘Amelia Boynton Robinson Conservatorship Account.’”

]]>http://chicagodefender.com/2015/08/30/amelia-boynton-robinson-civil-rights-champion-dies/feed/0imgres-1kaielzAmelia Platt Boyton-Robinson pictured with President Obama.They paved the way for Barack Obama's historic Inauguration, to be held just one day after the nation's annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.Dr. Amelia Boynton Robinson, Mother of the Voting Rights MovementAmelia Boyton-Robinson , Civil Rights Champion passes but her legacy lives onRauner Signs Bills That Impact the Black Communityhttp://chicagodefender.com/2015/08/26/rauner-signs-bills-that-impact-the-black-community/
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Governor Bruce Rauner

“I want to thank Governor Rauner for listening to President Preckwinkle and myself, Cook County Commissioner Stanley Moore Chairman of Law Enforcement, by taking action to end this horrible practice of Automatic Transfer of Juveniles to Adult Court.”

Not the typical quote one would expect to see on the Facebook page of a Democratic Cook County Board Commissioner, especially when Governor Rauner is a Republican locked in a battle of egos with the undisputed champion of Democratic politics, Illinois Speaker of the House Mike Madigan. It is also a quote that one would not expect to see from a Black Democrat, especially when Democrats are holding Rauner accountable for devastating Rauner has tied his funding of those services to reforms such as empowerment zones and repealing the prevailing wage laws that he says would, “allow people to work in their own communities.” Democratic leaders have maintained that those changes would decimate the middle class, so they have dug their heels in for the long fight, leaving the Black social service community to wait and wonder on the outcome.

Gov. Rauner approved funding for police body cameras. Illinois will be the first in the state in the country to implement the policy.

In the meantime, Rauner continues to sign legislation that benefits the Black community, whether it was ground breaking legislation like Senate Bill 1304, which provided the framework to make Illinois the first state in the nation to fund body cameras, and lesser known legislation like Senate Bill 1847, which expands SNAP benefits for Illinois residents. While the legislation Rauner has signed is not specifically for Black people, their impact on the Black community cannot be denied.

There was very little fanfare when Rauner signed SB 1304, “The Body Camera Bill” that was sponsored by Sen. Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago) and Rep. Elgie Sims (D-Chicago). The bill provides funding for police body cameras, creates a rogue cop database and requires independent investigators in cases of police involved shootings. The bill was the result of Raoul and Sims combining over 200 separate pieces of legislation submitted by legislators. The work could have been erased with the stroke of the Governor’s pen, and as a Republican, Rauner was under no obligation to sign, “a first in the nation law that challenged law enforcement” on behalf of Black people, but he did. Black lawmakers found themselves applauding the same Governor the have been vilifying all summer.

That would not be the last time Black lawmakers found themselves commending Rauner for bills he has chosen to sign. When Rauner signed HB 172, ending the automatic transfer of juveniles to adult detention without judicial review, Cook County Commissioner Stanley Moore thanked Rauner for signing the bill, even while naysayers whispered that Rauner owned companies have invested in private prisons.

In the midst of what was supposed to be a state shutdown, Rauner signed House Bill 3673, which provided funding for state workers and schools. By signing this bill, Rauner allowed approximately $5 billion in funds to pass through state government to open schools and make sure that state employees were able to receive their paychecks. Funding CPS allowing it to open its doors were particularly important to Black people. A closed CPS would put a tremendous strain on the Black families that those schools serve. And with the status of childcare funding in limbo until the budget impasse is settled, the impact of closing schools would have a compounded effect in the Black community.

The budget impasse aside, Governor Rauner has shown the willingness to sign bills into law that address some of the most pressing issues in the Black community. While legislators may not agree with his budget, Rauner is demonstrating his willingness to confront some longstanding challenges in the Black community the best way he knows how. The question remains if Black legislators will keep sending him the bills that are most important to the Black community.

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The DuSable Museum of African-American History was founded in 1961 in the home of Dr. Margaret Burroughs and her husband, Charles on Michigan Avenue. The Burroughs and their friends and co-founders nurtured the museum for the next 12 years.

Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs Gets Her Street

It’s been a long time coming but it has come to pass that the 31st Beach & Park will be renamed “Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs Beach & Park.” The Chicago Park Board has agreed to giving Dr. Burroughs this well-deserved honor.

Dr. Burroughs was an American visual artist, writer and a co-founder of the DuSable Museum of African American History. An active member of the African-American community, she was also instrumental in the establishment of the South Side Community Art Center, whose opening on May 1, 1941 was dedicated by the First Lady of the United States Eleanor Roosevelt. The art center housed across the street from her home became a haven for the WPA artists. So many of whom are house hold names amongst art officianottos. At the age of 23 Burroughs served as the youngest member of the Southside Community Arts Center, which hosted, art classes workshop s and studio space for board of directors.

She was a prolific writer, with her effortsdirected toward the exploration of the Black experience and to children, especially to encourage and enhance their appreciation of their cultural identity and to their introduction and growing awareness of art. Always seeking ways to get the art in front of people, she is also credited with the founding of Chicago’s Lake Meadows Art Fair in the early 1950s. But her greatest contribution was the founding of the DuSAble Museum, the first African American Museum in the U.S. Her vision of the institution was to document, archive, preserve, showcase and teach African American History to all Black people especially children.

The announcement of the renaming will take place next Tuesday,August 11 at the 31st St., Beach, adjacent to the beach house. More information on logistics for the press conference will follow. It will take place at 10:30 AM and the Congressman would like to invite you to attend.

In addition, on Wednesday, August 12 the board will take the official voteat the regular scheduled board meeting the board meeting will be at 3:30 PM in their headquarters board room located at 5:41 North Fairbanks, eighth floor. You are encouraged to attend the Board meeting as well.

]]>http://chicagodefender.com/2015/08/08/dr-margaret-t-burroughs-gets-her-street/feed/0RRR-DuSMargaretStanding-620x348kaielzThe DuSable Museum of African-American History was founded in 1961 in the home of Dr. Margaret Burroughs and her husband, Charles on Michigan Avenue. The Burroughs and their friends and co-founders nurtured the museum for the next 12 years.WE ARE A MIRACULOUS PEOPLEhttp://chicagodefender.com/2015/08/08/we-are-a-miraculous-people/
http://chicagodefender.com/2015/08/08/we-are-a-miraculous-people/#respondSat, 08 Aug 2015 06:15:05 +0000http://chicagodefender.com/?p=141615]]>WE ARE A MIRACULOUS PEOPLE

E NOTES

By Kai EL’ Zabar

Executive Editor

Chicago Defender

I have often found myself saying to various individualsthat we are a miraculous people. They of course are curious as to why I would say such a thing given the tone of the conversation at that particular time. It usually emerges out of the conversation when we go into attack mode citing unfavorable things about us, how we operate on CPT/Colored People Time, how we don’t help each other like other race or ethnic groups, and how we are lazy, how the young people expect to be paid top dollar as an entry level worker and the worse is how we always criticize those of us who are successful and dictate how they should spend their money. I answer them with this, “Think about it. Whenever there is some sort of major tragedy, for example a mass murder that occurs at a high school.

Most often it takes place in a majority white school. The students, teachers, parents, administration and community are all traumatized. Or we can look at 9/11 and recall the impact of the attack caused New York and in particular all of the victim’s families that were directly affected. When massacres occur the clergy, therapists, and grievance counselors are called in to help students, victims families and all those affected emotionally. The implication is that those somehow involved have been affected in a way that impacts them psychologically, emotionally, physically and so forth. This impact whether it is caused by direct violence, or terrorism, war or racism is the labeled Post-traumatic Stress Disorder/PTSD, which shows up differently in various people based on the source of the trauma. Continued childhood violence, combat exposure, ongoing terrorism, the war experience as a civilian, the Holocaust or slavery all effect our behavior.

So let’s cut to the chase, my point is, authorities recognize the importance and necessity to make available trained individuals to help and assist victims’ of school massacres and yet have a very difficult time understanding or first recognizing that the condition of slavery has had an ongoing impact on African Americans. That past follows us just as the Holocaust follows the Jewish community. The film 12 Years a Slave, best dramatizes the mental and emotional scars caused to the human condition than perhaps most. To take a man who is already a second class citizen and demean him, strip him of all that he is except for what he believes himself to be is perhaps the most traumatic thing one human being can do to another.

I watch The Game Of Thrones with great interestbecause of the interaction between one group of people towards another. The character Theon Greyjoy, an aristocrat son of a Lord who boasts his way with women was taken from his home but welcomed by the family Starks with whom he was still respected as a human being. However when he had the opportunity to express gratitude towards the family who could have murdered him, instead, he chose to take over their land. He then finds himself captive by the cruel Ramsey Bolton who literally castrates him and transforms him into a pitiful, ruined creature known as Reek.

Over the season viewers observed a cocky mango from confident to a mumbling idiot scared of his own shadow because of the cruelty he endures under Ramsey. I can’t help but think of our experience as a people who have endured far more than such suffering portrayed on any fictional series. That sort of demeaning of one’s very existence was a daily occurrence in the lives of Blacks in America. Lupita Nyong´o’s character Patsey earned our empathy when she asked Solomon Northrop to kill her. She asked, “what do I have to live for?” She was valued for her beauty and ability to pick more cotton than any male slave yet her life was one of abuse. She was objectified by her sadistic owner who rapes and beats her daily at his whim. At one point we witness the slave owner’s wife throw a glass pitcher hitting Patsey upside her head leaving a scar. This ongoing terror and abuse is what Blacks endured. Just read or look at “Roots,” “Django,” “The Butler,” “The Help” “Selma, “The Great Debaters” and any other resource that will provide you insight into the day and a life of Blacks living in America. Blacks have continued to live in terror as demonstrated over the last year, a reign of terror with the deaths of unarmed Black men murdered at the hands of white policemen.

The most recent incidents captured on video expose the attitude of white supremacy at its best. Ray Tensing, U.C. police officer made up a fictitious story about why he shot and killed Samuel Dubose. This he reported forgetting that he had a body camera on. Joe Deters, Hamilton County prosecutor spoke candidly at his shock around the murder of Mr. Dubose. “What I wasn’t prepared for, and what I had not experienced as a prosecutor, was for a police officer to commit such a horrific act.”

Here’s the caveat, “Black people are not surprised white people.We have been telling you for years that our people are victims of this sort of racist behavior and that we have cause and reason to be angry, upset and distrustful of the law, the medical field, education and employment opportunities. We can go on and discuss Henrietta Lacks or the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, 16th Street Church Bombing killing 4 little girls, the numerous lynchings, the recent murder of 9 individuals while in Church at Emanuel AME, Charleston, N.C. and on and on and on.

We have always known this from our experience of simply being Black.So we will always question your explanation for why you have killed one of us when it appears that the victim did not provoke it. Of course we were suspicious when we learned that Sandra Bland died in her cell after being stopped for a traffic violation. But more importantly what I am saying here is that as a people suffering all this, that we have never had any consultation, no therapy, no treatment and yet we are held to the letter to perform and be normal. If we still speak harshly at our children it’s because we have been taught to through our slavery experience which has been passed down. Were we not beat darn near to our death because we failed to bring in the amount of cotton you expected?

Was not Emmett Till, a 14-year old brutally mutilated/murdered because it was said he whistled at a white woman? We suffer the same sort of trauma that war, terror, violence and abuse victims experience. And worse our abuse has been an ongoing occurrence over two hundred years. However still we have made huge strides as a people. It is for that reason that I look at us in amazement knowing what we have gone through to get here. We have come a long way. Yes in spite of it all we have a Black President of the United States, who has been disrespected by congress and often times the media. So when the Bright Moments like the Bud Billiken Parade comes around, a moment in time when we can hold ourselves up and express appreciation for who we are and what we do the way we do it is much to be grateful for. We all look forward with much joy to celebrate our children and the opportunity to convey the importance of education.

Quinton de’ Alexanderhas been described by Chicago Now as a “designer extraordinaire” who has taken the Chicago fashion scene to a new level. And although his designs are without question exquisite, dramatic, exotic at times and certainly unforgettable and always elegant and high fashion his best work is what he does to make a difference in the community.

De’ Alexander combined fashion and philanthropy in inventive ways. He regularly offered free seats at his exclusive fashion shows to those who could not otherwise afford to attend. It was his was of introducing some glamour and fun into the lives of young single mothers. He has arranged “spa days” with makeovers and modeling lessons, presenting a designer prom dress to the teen mom with the best grades. He created similar programs for the mature , building self-esteem in those whom society often ignores by staging fashion shows where seniors model designer originals.

Another side of de’ Alexander’s community work was inspired by his own solitary struggle to learn the skills he needed to succeed in the field of fashion design. Through an organization he’s founded called Creativity United, Inc., de’ Alexander helps aspiring artists to gain a foothold in all facets of the design industry. Creativity United also hosted the Midwest Fashion and Beauty Designer Awards, an annual event recognizing the achievements of both established and beginning designers.

And if that isn’t enough, his pride and joy is his annual event ‘Creativity United’ Project, ‘We Live and Remember in Color’ hosted this year Saturday, August 1, 2015 at The DuSable Museum.

The annual even celebrates some extraordinary people. Survivors that have over come some challenging obstacles who live to share their testimonies to encourage and inspire other’s to keep their faith and get through what they must go through to heal.

Project “We Live And Remember In Color” ground breaking mission is to unify the awareness colors of health and humanity in one ribbon. Our objective is to stress the importance of knowing your color. Knowing your color is the key to mind and body support, disease prevention and humanitarian assistance. Because people give most to what matters to them, Project “We Live And Remember In Color” intends to showcase events in collaboration with other organizations in fundraising efforts toward the many “Colors” that affect us all. (colors refer to the colors of the ribbons attributed to the disease with which it is associate i.e.., pink is breast cancer)

Quinton de’Alexander is quite extraordinary himself. I spoke with him during production and under the gun only to recognize his serene calm and composure as he continued to work and pull together the final touches that will bring the event attendees to their feet. It really will be an amazing red carpet event which dazzle everyone. The attire is black tie.

He showed me some event photos from years pastand I was enthralled at the stage settings and asked, “Who’s your set designer?” only to hear him reply, “Me.”

This he also does, just one more task, a major task I might add given all else that he does to assure that the participants, attendees and honoree’s all have a pleasant evening to remember.

But perhaps the most alarming factor in all this is that he lost his mother with whom he was very close earlier this year around Mother’s Day. He expressed,” At one point I thought to put the event on hiatus and then realized my mother wouldn’t want that. She’d prefer that I do my work, to serve and contribute to those in need, so here I am, here we are ready to celebrate humanity.”

de’Alexander says, “We at ‘Project ‘We Live and Remember in Color’ is on your side. Celebrating individuals and assisting you with realizing that ‘life is a song worth singing’!!!! Celebrate life!!! For more information of our ‘we dream in color’ humanitarian celebration, please visit:www.weliveandremember.com. ‘Media center/video’s’ to view highlights of past celebrations.